Agriculture is the top industry in Montana. Innovations in ag have led to high-paying jobs across the state. Along with the farmers and ranchers who work in this vital sector, there are numerous positions that support ag as a whole, providing not only a stronger ag community but good jobs in themselves.

Consider these roles:

Fertilizer and crop protection dealers – There are experts trained in a variety of crop needs, who provide farmers with nutrition recommendations and products.

Equipment dealers – These people have knowledge of both crops and the tools required to manage them from beginning to end.

Researchers – Montana State University’s ag department provides crucial assistance to the farming community. Researchers study methods and diseases of plants, perform tests for the disease identification, and provide certification standards for seed production of small-grain crops and potatoes. On the ranching side, veterinary medicine, feed nutrition, and genetics are key in research to aid the industry.

Mechanics – With the options available in farming equipment these days, it’s no wonder that some larger farms have full-time mechanics that specialize in farm equipment.

Technology experts – This is a specialized field dealing with yield mapping and GPS in farming. It’s a growing part of the industry that shows great usefulness, with experts that visit farms to analyze results or train farming staff.

Marketing – There is an entire group of people, including buyers and packing houses, who work to move animals from the ranchers raising them to the consumers.

Truckers – These men and women are an often-overlooked piece of the puzzle, transporting the animals and farming products around the state.

Feeders – These jobs take care of feeding the animals between the buying and packing stage.

Bankers and insurance agents – Friendly, understanding workers are essential for financing and protecting the assets, in spite of the potential risks of farming.

Here’s a shout out to those who work so diligently in the agriculture community! Your work in all phases of the process is critical to this important industry and the jobs it creates in our state.

Greg Gianforte

One Comment

A lot of Montana’s good jobs in the recent past were based on processing agricultural outputs (grain mills and storage elevators, barley malting, sugar beet refining, beef and pork packing plants, honey processing and packaging, industrial bakeries, breweries, distilleries, wineries, fruit and vegetable canneries, sawmills, cardboard and papermaking, particle board and plywood mfg., kiln-dried dimensional lumber, beams, and trusses, pastamaking, cereals, food-grade oils, ice cream making, creameries, woolen mills, leather tanneries and saddlemaking, etc.) with much of that disappearing when different policies and efforts could have retained and grown them like many states have. Our ag inputs from beef genetics/semen and ova shipping all over the world, bee attracting pheromones, fertilizers, specialty chemicals development and production, oil refining, irrigation development, soil amendments, new plant breeds, etc. are more often than not world class with big export and growth potential but grow despite the state more often than not. We can do vastly more and as these are place-bound businesses but it needs very different approaches to capital formation and workforce training than we’ve had the past century.